Then he buggered off to Salisbury and left us in charge of the wreckage.
The only one who left with them was our mutual friend Sanders. One of the rioters had managed to hit him with a rock while he was on the barricades, so he’d been out of action when the order to fire was given. Lucky bastard had a get out of jail free card. I reckon he’d have opened fire like the rest of them, but later that day he swore to me that he wouldn’t have.
You think so? Well, I suppose you got to know him a little better than I did.
Anyway, with the PM dead, most of the cabinet wandering around like headless chickens, and the bleeding hearts executed, I saw my chance and took control. It wasn’t hard. I had the most experience of command. I acted like I was the boss and they fell into line.
But Central London was empty. Those left alive fled the centre after the massacre, and the virus was still finishing its work.
I was the ruler of a ghost town.
I didn’t have grand ambitions. We fortified our position as thoroughly as we could, gathered up all the food we could find, and waited for the virus to burn itself out. That was a long winter. Quite boring, actually.
By the time spring came I’d worked out a new plan. I divided the city into quadrants and we began clearing it. Emptying the roads of cars, dragging all the bodies to mass pyres, stockpiling fuel and resources. We did that for a whole year, one street at a time. Reclaiming the heart of the city.
The army stayed away. I knew they were collecting weapons from all around the country and building their great depot on the plain, but they didn’t want to get involved in London. Kennett left it to us. Probably figured that time would only make him stronger and us weaker. He’d have been right too. I’d consolidated my position but I had no real power base because nobody would come into the centre any more. I think Kennett would probably have come for us eventually, and I’d have been toast. If it wasn’t for the American.
I bet you encountered a lot of religious cults in the last few years? I expected the same thing to happen in the outskirts of London, but they all unified behind one preacher. I first heard about the American three years ago. He’d built up quite a following in West London. I found out later that he’d flown into Heathrow and started preaching at the first settlement he found. He taught people how to tune into the broadcasts.
That’s right, yeah. The Miracle.
So he gathered a huge following very quickly and then one day he and a gang of his followers walked into my territory and said hello. I think his acolytes were supposed to intimidate us. They were all dressed in army surplus and carrying shotguns.
They nearly wet themselves when they realised who we were.
He didn’t, though. He stayed very cool.
So I let him talk. Gave him dinner at Number 10, allowed him make his pitch. I needed allies, after all. He showed me the broadcast and I was impressed. I didn’t think this Abbot guy was the new messiah but I could see how people could want to believe he was.
I wasn’t convinced they were a real force, though. I mean, a bunch of religious nutters run by a Yank didn’t seem like much of a threat to Operation Motherland. But then, after dinner, the Yank took me down into the cellars of Number 10. There was a door down there that I’d not been able to breach. The keypad was still active, run by some distant power source, and I’d had no joy with the code.
But this guy knew it. That’s when I really started paying attention. I asked him who he was, but he just smiled. To this day he’s never told me, but he must have been CIA, probably based here before The Cull. He knew all sorts of crazy shit, let me tell you.
The bunker down there is pretty extensive, with lots of comms equipment. He took me to an office, which I think was the PM’s retreat in the event of a major attack, and said to pick up the red phone on the desk.
I did so, and after a second’s silence I heard someone saying my name.
The voice at the end of the phone said he was the president, that he was working with the Abbot, and that they had managed to restore rule of law. He wanted to know if I was the de facto PM so of course I said yes.
Long story short, he had a proposal for me. If I would start exporting children to the US, he would send their army to back me up.
Now, look at this from my position. On one hand, I have a power base but no power, and the British Army knows where I am and is almost certainly getting ready to come and flush me out. On the other, I’m being offered the support of an entire army that will do as I say as long as I provide them with the resource they require. Can you think of anyone better suited to round up the kids and ship them abroad? I mean, it’s kind of top of my CV, isn’t it?
So I told the president about Operation Motherland. Where they were and what they were doing. I told him if he wanted my help, he would have to eliminate them first.
He put me in touch with Blythe in Iraq and the rest you know. I realised that once Kennett was out of the way, I would have to deal with Blythe, but at least initially he’d be on my side. I’d have time to work out a strategy to deal with him.
And then, hallelujah, the Yanks took out Kennett and his forces, but managed to get themselves wiped out in the process. I’m not ashamed to say I did a little jig when I heard about the nuke. Couldn’t believe my fucking luck. The biggest single threat to my power base had been neutralised and there was no fallout.
Well, not for me, anyway. Ha ha.
At that point I could have told the president to go fuck himself, but the thing was I kind of enjoyed being back in the trafficking business. It gave me something to do, and it meant that my sphere of influence spread. People started to become afraid of me, to respect me and my forces. Me and the Yank still work together. He takes care of the religious stuff – brainwashing the plebs and spreading the word – while I take care of logistics and manpower.
Pretty much the entire territory inside the M25 is mine now, and soon we’ll start moving outside. I actually had your school down as my first port of call. Once I’ve dealt with a little problem in Hammersmith tomorrow, maybe we’ll take a trip there together.
What? Oh, didn’t I say?
How do you think the Abbot stays alive? Blood transfusions, Kate. Daily. Fresh, young, healthy blood from universal donors.
He’s basically a vampire.
And Britain is his blood bank.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“ATTACKING THAT CONVOY had seemed like such a good idea at the time,” said Caroline, shaking her head in frustration. “This is like herding cats.”
The army that she’d accumulated during the previous year were pretty well drilled. They followed orders and knew when to shut up. The hundred or so kids that they’d released from the convoy, on the other hand, were a gaggle of confused, impulsive, homesick brats with snotty noses and bad attitudes. Trying to smuggle them out of the city without drawing attention would have been hard enough, but doing so while they fought, cried, wandered off or kept nipping into abandoned buildings in search of a bed, was driving her nuts. She had to keep reminding herself not to be to angry. They were hungry and tired, and it was a freezing cold night.
While she mostly managed to keep a lid on her anger, her fear was growing unchecked. They needed to get a move on. It would be dawn in an hour and they weren’t far enough away from their old nest yet. The trail would be fresh and easy to follow. The churchies had jeeps and helicopters. It had taken Caroline six hours to move the kids about a mile north; it would take their pursuers two minutes to cover the same distance.
“Luke,” she called. The gangly teenage boy who served as her lieutenant was at her side in an instant. He was a year older than her but he was puppy dog loyal and hard as nails. “I want you to take Andrew, Melissa and Lizzie, and scout ahead. Find us somewhere to hole up. Somewhere defensible, okay?”
He nodded, gathered up the other three kids and ran to the end of the road, scanning for activity, then ducking out of sight. They were travelling parallel to the main road out of H
ammersmith, using the residential side roads as cover. The idea had been to go north ’til they crossed the M25, then swing west and circle round until they were above Kent before heading south to the school. At this rate, she realised, it would be a death march. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they would have to find somewhere safe to stay out of sight while a couple of them made the journey. That way the school could send a lorry to collect the kids. That is, if the school was still there. Caroline was sure that Matron had given up their Hammersmith base, what if she had given up the school too? She dismissed the thought, not because she didn’t think it likely, but because there was nothing she could do about it. If the school was gone, she decided, they’d just have to go to ground in the countryside. There’d be plenty of places to disappear.
Those kids who’d been with her for a while were trying to keep the new arrivals quiet as they neared the street corner. Caroline was in front, gun at the ready, when she heard a single shot echo back to her from the road ahead. She spun around waving frantically, indicating for the kids to scatter. Her ‘soldiers’ immediately began shushing the kids and herding them into the abandoned houses. In one minute the street was empty, the fear of imminent discovery managing what she’d been trying for hours to achieve – keeping the little brats quiet so she could think. She could see the pale faces of her guys at the doorways of the houses they’d taken shelter in, standing guard, waiting for her to make a move.
She gripped the gun tightly and ran to the pavement, pressing herself into the shadows and creeping forward so she could peer round the corner into the next road.
Her heart sank as she saw a pair of dual-cab pickups on the road, their roof-mounted spotlights picking out her four friends, who were down on their knees with their hands behind their backs. Each vehicle carried a team of four heavily armed men, three of whom were advancing with their guns trained on the captives. The road was wide and open, and the cars and kids were in the middle of a huge junction, providing almost no cover. She couldn’t get close to them without being seen by the two men who were standing in the open backs of the vehicles, scanning the area for possible attack.
They were too far away for her to hear what the men said when they reached the four kneeling children, but she could tell they were shouting. Andrew was typically defiant and shouted back, which earned him a gun butt in the face and then, once he’d fallen over, a hard kick to the solar plexus.
Caroline clenched the gun tighter, so wanting to blow that fucker’s head off but seeing no way to do so without leading them right to the children she was trying to protect. She was about to turn away when first one lookout then the other went rigid and dropped like stones off the sides of the vehicles on to the road. Caroline hadn’t heard any shots. What the fuck had just happened?
The men interrogating her friends didn’t seem to know either. At first they just looked confused. One of them walked to the nearest car to see what was going on. Just as he rounded the cab he dropped too, silent and instant. Caroline realised they were under attack, but she still had no idea by whom, or how. She was still too far away to approach unseen, even with this distraction. If she made a play, there was still a better than average chance that she’d be cut down. She bit her lip and, fighting down her instinctive desire to wade into the fight, waited to see how this would play out.
The engines of the vehicles revved as the two drivers indicated their desire to leave. The two men still in the open hesitated, unsure, and then ran – one to each cab. Neither of them made it. This time, as the second one fell, Caroline caught a glimpse of something sticking out of his chest. She couldn’t be sure at this distance and in this light, but she thought maybe it was an arrow.
The drivers didn’t wait another second. They screamed away at speed, racing to escape this silent attacker. One of them made it, but the other began swerving wildly from left to right before smashing straight through the frontage of an old pub, erupting into flames. The archer must have managed to shoot the driver through his windscreen while he was moving. Shit, this guy was good.
The other pickup squealed around a corner and vanished into the night as Caroline broke cover and ran to see how her four friends were doing. Andrew was sitting up, his face a mess of tears and snot. The other three were getting to their feet, mouths open. Caroline went and inspected one of the dead churchies. Sure enough when she rolled him over there was a thin wooden arrow buried deep in his chest. It had been painted black.
“That’s mine,” said a deep voice behind her and she spun, instinctively raising her weapon as she did so.
Since there were no streetlights, there were few shadows for the archer to step out of. He just sort of materialised out of the darkness. Dressed head to toe in dark green, he held a wooden bow in his right hand. A quiver of arrows stuck up over his left shoulder.
“The beauty of arrows, you see, is that they’re recyclable. Shoot a bullet or a cartridge, like the one that shotgun of yours fires, and it’s gone forever. But an arrow...” He stepped past her, reached down and yanked the wooden shaft from the dead man’s chest. It came out with a soft squelch. “That can be used again.”
“Who are you?” asked Melissa, who was now standing behind Caroline.
“My name’s Ferguson,” said the archer in a thick Irish accent as he wiped his arrow clean on the dead man’s jacket. He stood up and slotted it back into his quiver, ready for another day. “I’m a Ranger.” He seemed surprised that this pronouncement was greeted with silence. “From Nottingham,” he added. And then: “I’m with Hood.”
He stared at their blank faces, waiting for the spark of recognition. Nothing.
“I can see we need a better publicist,” he said, smiling.
“Thank you,” said Andrew, now on his feet.
“You’re welcome. You know what would be a good way to thank me? Getting this young lady to stop pointing a shotgun at me.”
Everyone stared at Caroline, who held her gun steady. “Hood?” she said. “Robin Hood in Nottingham?” The sarcasm dripped like honey.
“The very same,” said the archer.
“Right. And you’re, what, one of his Merry Men?”
The archer shook his head “No. I’m one of the Sullen Men. The Merry Men are, you know, merrier than me. They crack more jokes.”
Caroline could see her friends smiling, but she didn’t follow suit. “Why should I trust you?”
The archer allowed indicated the dead bodies of the churchies that littered the crossroads, the look on his face saying ‘you want more proof?’
“Bit convenient, though, isn’t it? You just turning up like this, just in time to rescue us from the bad guys. Almost like it was staged.”
“Caroline, seriously?” said Luke.
“Think about it, Luke. Perfect way to gain our trust. What if Matron didn’t tell them where the school is? This would be a perfect way to infiltrate us and get us to lead them straight there. They’ve already tried it once, remember.”
“He killed them, Caroline,” said Melissa.
“Yeah, and wasn’t that easy?”
“You think they let him?” Andrew’s tone of voice betrayed the incredulity he and all his friends were feeling. Caroline didn’t understand why they couldn’t see it.
“They’re fucking churchies, guys,” she said. “Probably think they’re martyrs, seventy-eight virgins waiting for them or something.” She glanced at their shocked faces. “What, you doubt my judgment now, after everything we’ve been through? Don’t you see this is what he wants? Turn you against me, let you lead him to the school and then it’ll be a fucking army of snatchers turning up at to carry us off. We should just kill him and move on.”
Luke stepped forward and gently laid his hand on the barrel of her shotgun. “Too paranoid, Caroline. I don’t buy it.”
The archer wisely stayed silent, watching Caroline closely, waiting to see how this would play out.
Caroline clenched her jaw. She could just pull the trigger,
finish this guy regardless. It was the safe thing to do. It was necessary, she knew that. Why couldn’t the others see it? Once he was dead they’d fall into line, they’d have no choice. Who else was going to shepherd them to safety? They’d realise eventually that she was right. She squeezed the trigger gently.
“No!” shouted Luke, pushing the barrel down as the gun went off. The cloud of lead pellets embedded itself in tarmac. The archer didn’t even flinch.
Caroline spun fast, dropping the gun and drawing a knife from her belt as she did so. The blade was at Luke’s throat before he could step backwards.
They stood there, frozen, for a long moment. Luke was scared but defiant, sticking his chest out and staring Caroline down. Eventually she withdrew the knife and resheathed it.
“Traitor,” she spat. Then she turned on her heels and stalked off into the darkness, away from her friends and the children who were beginning to emerge from hiding to see what was going on.
She needed to be alone.
FERGUSON FOUND HER an hour later.
The shop downstairs had been looted clean, but the flat above it, although long abandoned, still had some stuff lying around that no-one had bothered to cart off. She lay on the double bed, ignoring the smell of mould, and took another swig from the bottle of whisky she’d found down the back of the sofa.
She disregarded the soft knock at the front door. It was open anyway, and she knew it would just be one of her friends come to coax her back. She already knew she was going to relent, but she allowed herself the luxury of sulking there in the darkness, knowing that she was being self-indulgent but needing to be persuaded, needing someone to make explicit how much she was needed and valued.
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